Three University of Minnesota professors have been elected members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s most prestigious honorary societies. Dante Cicchetti, Allen Isaacman and Donald Truhlar.

Named “Mesabi,” the supercomputer will increase the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute’s infrastructure for running complex research operations, while also extending the total number of research projects the institute can support at once. The system is projected to be one of the five fastest supercomputers used for academic purposes in the country, running about 3,864 times faster than a typical personal computer.

For the first time dark matter may have been observed interacting with other dark matter in a way other than through the force of gravity. Observations of colliding galaxies made with European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have picked up the first intriguing hints about the nature of this mysterious component of the Universe.

Research published in the open access journal Microbiome offers new evidence for the success of fecal microbial transplantation (FMT) in treating severe Clostridium difficile infection (CDI), a growing problem worldwide that leads to thousands of fatalities every year.

Four undergraduates in the College of Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities have been named 2015 Barry M. Goldwater Scholars. The prestigious, competitive scholarship is awarded annually to outstanding sophomores and juniors who intend to pursue research-oriented careers in mathematics, the natural science, and engineering. The scholarship awards up to $7500 per year for two years of undergraduate study. All four Scholars are juniors enrolled in the University Honors Program.